Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

 

 

At the same moment, Ryan was aware of someone moving fast and silent behind him, up the stairs. He started to turn, reaching for the hilt of his panga, half drawing it, when the bulky figure hit at him with another polished baseball bat. It caught the panga across the steel blade with a loud ringing sound, sending it tumbling down the steps, out of reach.

 

There was no time to stop to wonder what was happening.

 

"To wonder is to begin to die," Trader often said.

 

The bat swung toward Ryan and he ducked, vaulting onto the open landing, glimpsing a second shadow, poised ready to swing at him.

 

"Outland bastard!"

 

He dived and rolled under the blow, feeling it brush against his ribs, cracking into the floor. There was no time to worry about J.B., who was down and out of it.

 

Out of the corner of his good eye, Ryan caught a glimpse of the baron, who looked almost as if he were sleeping.

 

Almost.

 

Once you've seen the overwhelming stillness of death, you can never mistake it for anything else.

 

There was a splinter of frozen time for Ryan to see the unnatural angle of the head on the neck, where the body lay against one of the padded chairs, and the dark grinning mouth that had been ripped open below the line of the baron's jaw.

 

As he scuttled across the large room, ducking and weaving, he heard the characteristic light crack of a high-velocity, low-caliber handblaster being fired. There was a hot, whining sound, and the bullet smacked into one of the supporting pillars.

 

"Get him, Robby?"

 

"Don't think so, Teddy. You chilled the little prick with the glasses?"

 

"Think so, Robby. I'll give him another good one for luck."

 

"Best get one-eye first, Teddy."

 

Ryan was pinned down behind a chair, safe for the moment. But he could assume that the brothers, having butchered their stepfather, would each have a blaster. All they had to do was move around the top floor in opposite directions and he was dead meat. He looked behind him, seeing that the only case of blasters anywhere near him contained the single-shot Parker dueling pistol that J.B. had talked about with such enthusiasm.

 

The baron had said that it was one of the blasters that was actually charged with powder and ball. But if he could reach it and manage a shot at one of the brothers, then there wouldn't possibly be any time for the complex procedure of loading a flintlock pistol. He would be helpless and exposed for the other brother to gun him down.

 

"Come and give yourself up, one-eye!"

 

"He thinks that if he stays in hiding, then a big, brave sec man'll magic himself up here and save his skin, doesn't he, Teddy?"

 

"He does, Robby."

 

They were starting to move closer. Ryan could tell because they were so double stupe and arrogant that they continued talking to him.

 

"But they won't will they, Teddy?"

 

"No, they won't. Because we sent them away and said that our beloved stepfather was tired and didn't want to be disturbed by anyone."

 

"Very tired, Teddy."

 

"Very tired, Robby." Both of them giggled.

 

"Then we'll chill one-eye and little glasses man, and show everyone what they did to Baron Hamish Tenbos and how we tried to save him, Teddy."

 

"Just too late, Robby. Just in time to avenge his bloody murder."

 

They were already nearly a quarter of the way around the big circular chamber.

 

There was no point in waiting.

 

Ryan suddenly screamed and erupted from the shadows, heaving the heavy chair in the general direction of the stairs, bisecting the approaching brothers. Both of them yelped in shock, both firing twice at the fast-moving figure.

 

One bullet smashed into the stock of a Kentucky musket on the wall, inches from Ryan's head. But he was too quick. His hand darted into the glass display case and grabbed the saw-handled pistol, plucking up the flask of black powder as he dodged away again.

 

"Missed him, Teddy."

 

"And I did, Robby."

 

"Why did he do that?"

 

"He got a blaster, Robby."

 

"Does he know it's not loaded, Teddy?"

 

He raised his voice. "Stepfather never loaded his guns up here, one-eye. So it won't do you any good."

 

Ryan eased back the hammer, hoping that the powder and charge were fresh enough. All he needed now was a flash in the pan to see him into eternity.

 

"Time to finish this, Robby." There was a new sense of urgency in the voice, with the awareness that someone might hear the sound of the shooting and come to investigate.

 

"Agreed, brother."

 

Ryan was crouched behind another of the soft, metal-framed chairs, the gun cocked and ready. He peered around and saw that the brothers, thinking themselves safe, had come out into the open. TeddyRyan thought it was Teddywas perfectly silhouetted against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, about forty feet away from him.

 

"Please," he breathed, sighting along the elegant barrel and gently squeezing the trigger.

 

Ryan hadn't fired a flintlock blaster for a long, long time, and he was taken a little by surprise by the tiny puff of smoke and flash as the hammer dropped, the flint igniting the powder in the pan, which was followed almost immediately by the main charge firing. The gun bucked in his hand. The sound of the explosion, so much softer than more modern firearms, drifted into the room.

 

Teddy Tenbos staggered three steps backward, dropping his own Saturday-night special, and clutched at his chest. "I'm fucking shot, Robby," he said, dismay rising above anger or pain in his quiet voice.

 

"What?"

 

"Gun was loaded after Chilled me, Robby."

 

"He might chill me, Teddy."

 

The younger brother suddenly sank to his knees, as though some mighty prelate had entered the top chamber. "No. Sure about it, Robby. Get him for"

 

He fell forward, like a man sliding headfirst off a breakwater into shallow waves.

 

"Teddy? Teddy!"

 

Ryan had considered charging at the surviving brother, while he was still in shock. But he was too far away for the gambit to have much hope of success.

 

"I'm reloading, Robby," Ryan said, snapping back the hammer and carefully priming the beautiful Parker pistol with the powder horn.

 

"You lying bastard." The voice was taut with an icy rage.

 

"Putting the ball in now." Ryan removed the ramrod and pushed it down the nine-inch, smooth-bore octagonal barrel. "Nearly done."

 

Robby was totally confident, stepping slowly toward Ryan's crouching figure. He passed the blood-sodden corpse of his stepfather without a single sideways glance, the chromed revolver in his hand.

 

"Wasting your time, outlander."

 

"Keep coming," said Ryan.

 

Robby stopped and sniggered, standing still, less than twenty feet away from Ryan, his blaster steady in his right hand. Behind him, Teddy's death-rattle told that his race was run.

 

"You did me a favor, one-eye. Our plan was to share the barony between us. Blame you and your companion for the murder of poor Hamish. Chill you both. Now it's even better. I'm the sole baron, with a dead brother to add weight to my tale of woe. Thank you, outlander." He laughed again as Ryan leveled the dueling pistol at him. "An empty gun frightens nobody," he said.

 

Ryan pulled the trigger and the powder fired, shooting the ramrod at Robby. It struck him in the throat, smashing through his windpipe and severing the spinal cord, protruding three inches from the back of his neck.

 

There was a choking, gargling sound from the mortally wounded man. He fired his own gun once, the bullet disintegrating one of the tall windows of the tower.

 

As Robby stumbled backward, drowning in his own blood, he tripped over his brother's corpse and fell dead on top of him.